Now that the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has tightened up telemarketing rules, it is even more important that the quality of your leads is as high as possible. CDDN helps companies improve that quality significantly. That is to everyone’s benefit, because the better the quality of the call data, the less irritation for consumers. In addition, it increases the efficacy of call attempts. Getting hold of the right person with the first call attempt means fewer call hours and more efficient reaching of clients and prospects.

The most important change to the telemarketing rules is that consumers may no longer receive unsolicited calls. The change to the Telecommunications Act did not come out of the blue. The number of complaints about unsolicited sales calls from telemarketeers increased drastically in recent years. That was shown by research carried out by the Netherlands Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM).

A natural person now needs to take specific action themselves to be included in a calling list. In addition, telemarketeers must be able to show the natural person knowingly and voluntarily gave permission to be called.

The change to the law means the opt-in-system replaces the previous opt-out system. Telemarketing companies and organisations may no longer make unsolicited calls to natural persons. Telemarketing for commercial, charitable and idealistic purposes is permitted, but only if the natural person has given prior permission, or if there is a customer relationship. That customer relationship may have been up to 3 years ago.

NATEGIS

Since then, it has been very important for calling lists to be up to date and of good quality. Calling the wrong person accidentally can have unfortunate consequences. For example, data that may or may not have been filled in incorrectly and does not correspond, such as a name and telephone number, or incorrect address for the person in question.

CDDN’s core business is to keep the recorded customer details up to date and accurate (Article 6, GDPR), and thanks to a unique partnership with the business sector, customer data is validated for correctness in 98% of cases. That is how we improve the quality of telemarketing prospects daily.

Thanks to a method that was developed inhouse, CDDN is able to check all data collected in any combination (up to 32,000 decision rules). CDDN calls this the so-called NATEGIS code. That consists of the following details:

• Name
• Address
• Telephone number (landline/mobile)
• Email address (1=N)
• Date of birth
• Initials
• Sex code

This information is provided with an indication of the date on which the person in question was last contacted. The NATEGIS code is used in communication with the hundreds of companies that participate in our Consumenten Basis Administratie (CBA), and by omitting letters in this code, it is clear what has been checked and what has not.

That means a record supplied with, for example, a forename, surname, address and mobile number can be checked against NAT. If the address does not correspond with the name at the address, the requester is sent the N_T code by return, which indicates that the address does not correspond with the person, but the mobile number does.

For an optimal check, the more data supplied for the (NATEGIS) check, the better the check can be carried out.

CDDN validates for large PSPs and online retailers (with volumes in excess of 150,000 checks per month) and that shows 80 percent can be checked in a quick and efficient way.

Supplementary checks

In addition to checking against NATEGIS, additional checks are carried out in many cases to improve quality further, but also to offer the consumer better protection when making offers.

In addition to checking against NATEGIS, CDDN can also check:

1. Has the person moved?
2. Has the person died?
3. Is the person listed on the PEP or Sanctions List register?
4. Is the person insolvent / in receivership?
5. Is the person aged 18 or older?
6. Is the person’s IBAN number correct?